CHAPTER 64: HAVENWOOD (1)

Silence fell over the scorched clearing in front of the settlement. Heat still rose from the splintered wood. Where screams had ripped through the air just moments before, now only the sound of wood burning tried to patch the silence. But it didn’t quite work.

What Reidar did was like unleashing a tiny apocalypse all over again. For a moment, anyone watching might’ve thought the world was terraforming the world all over again.

A notification flashed through Reidar’s mind.

[LEVEL UP! You have reached Level 37.]

[You have gained 0.5 attribute points to distribute.]

Great... It looks like helping these guys wasn’t a bad idea at all. It was just a level, but even a level counted.

Boots on gravel announced that a group of people was approaching him. Reidar didn’t know if these people would be hostile. Even if he helped them, human greed knew no bounds.

Men and women formed a line along the road. They were exhausted. Their eyes narrowed at Reidar when they saw the summoned creatures approach him in a defensive manner.

It looked like they couldn’t grasp how he could control monsters, meaning they didn’t even know summoning skills existed or, if they knew, they didn’t have enough survival points to buy them. Summoning creatures was basically OP, because the monsters were strong or, if not, at least expendable, and that wasn’t something to scoff at.

Running from a fight meant you could live to fight another day and get stronger. Reidar wasn’t dumb—he knew he didn’t have to be some hero or act like he couldn’t be touched.

The eyes widened when his sprites crouched at his heels. Everyone knew the tiny menaces, especially because during the first weeks, they were everywhere.

A man detached from the line and walked toward him. He carried weight on his shoulders like a tree held its age.

Broad-chested, tall. His jaw had a pale nick, and grey threaded his hair at the temples.

"My name’s Martin Vance," he said, stopping a few meters away—probably because of the monsters gathered at Reidar’s feet, or maybe his giant mount’s paws.

"What’s your name?" Martin’s tone was respectful, his posture relaxed but ready to fight if the man in front of him tried something funny. His hands were resting at his sides, but not too far from his weapon.

His eyes met Reidar’s directly but without challenge, acknowledging the clear power disparity between them while maintaining his dignity. This guy was most likely the settlement’s leader.

"Reidar Miller."

Martin’s gaze flickered to the smoldering corpse of a Mauler behind Reidar. "Well, then, Mr. Miller. I would like to thank you for your help. Without you, we would have lost half our people today."

"I was just passing by." Reidar followed the trails they left. That much was clear. It would have been challenging for anyone to find this place without them. But it wasn’t like he wanted to tell them he needed to restock. That would be a secret between his stomach and himself. After all, lack of food could be used to kill someone.

Vance’s eyes narrowed as the skeletons looted the bodies, sending whatever the System rewarded Reidar straight into his inventory.

Martin rolled his shoulders back, spine straightening. "So, forgive me for asking this, Mr. Miller, but is there a reason why you ended up in this part of the forest? Or better, here in Havenwood?"

There was a slight tint of suspicion in the man’s eye, as if he was thinking Reidar’s presence there was not casual at all. In a sense it wasn’t, but Martin seemed to have thought it was malignant. Though Reidar’s action clearly contrasted with this suspicion.

"I was just roaming around to level up and found the marks you left in the forest. Thanks for that."

"You are welcome. After what you did, that is not even close enough to repay you, though. You just saved my people from drowning in swamp blood. That counts for more than a few markings." A half-smile ghosted his lips.

"Let’s get back to the town. We’ve got beds, food that doesn’t bite back, and all the water you can carry."

"Sure, why not..." It wasn’t like they could kill him. He was tens of levels stronger than those guys, and his summons were all as strong as him.

Martin turned and led, his gait easy where other men stumbled. The group fell into step, and the dam’s shadow swallowed them, cool and official, like a promise hammered into stone.

Martin led him through the breach. Sun cut through the trees in ragged beams, landing on stacked sandbags and a crooked palisade of logs sharpened into teeth.

"You did good work here."

Martin nodded.

"We started from that," Martin said, lifting a hand toward a jagged wall. "A month ago it was a lean-to and a fighting pit. Now it’s a circuit of timber and concrete slabs pulled from the old highway."

Children clustered around a fire, scraping roots into a pot. A man hammered metal into plate mail on a makeshift anvil while a pair of lookouts in a tower scanned the treeline with longbows they clearly bought from the local vendor.

"Watchtowers?" Reidar asked, eyes moving over rope ladders and a platform patched with a corrugated sheet. He couldn’t figure out how they had made all of that in less than two months.

I guess they must have asked for the Vendor’s help. Maybe there is some kind of telekinesis ability that helped them do the heavy lifting.

"We started with telephone poles and scavenged planks. It keeps the flying monsters off our heads." Martin’s jaw tightened. "But the walls are not complete, and part of it is now destroyed. We need logs. The problem is that the Maulers make it difficult. You think you can haul a tree past those things?"

No, it was impossible. The only way to build all of this was to kill or repel the monsters. The question was, since there were enough people here to warrant the system to send a vendor, and the vendor’s presence led to the quests to gain the settlement creator token, why was there no barrier at the edge of the town’s territory?

"We’ve tried pushing out in squads," Martin said, his voice dropping to a low, grim register as they passed a section of the wall where fresh timber had been hastily patched over claw marks. He gestured toward the forest’s edge, where shadows seemed to gather and shift. "We lost good men and women just hauling timber back. The monsters come in packs now—you saw that yourself. They smell the fresh-cut wood, they smell the workers sweating and straining, and they raid us without mercy."

Reidar didn’t voice his concerns, nor his questions. The reason was simple. Havenwood didn’t have the settlement’s token, and the only protection they had was limited to the building where the vendor lived, and of course, the walls they erected,

But that issued questions. Why didn’t Havenwood have the token?

A boy approached, offering a strip of jerky. Martin accepted without a word, passing a glance along Reidar’s coat, the wand at his hip, the rings on his fingers, and, in general, his whole armor.

"Where were you headed?" Martin asked as they walked. "It’s rare to find a single soul wandering the forest alone, much less someone at your level."

Seeing someone at level 37 wasn’t exactly common.

"I’m heading to Creamont—my parents live there. I need to check on them and get them somewhere safe."

Martin slowed to look at him straight on. "Creamont’s a three-day travel under normal maps. Now that the apocalypse made previous distances a joke, I bet it would take at least a week, if not more. The forest pushed the roads into new shapes. Rivers rerouted themselves. I’d wager it’s farther than it used to be."

"Yeah, I guessed the same," Reidar said, "but it’s not like I can do anything about it."

"It’s longer and more dangerous than it looks," Martin said. "You won’t be walking a straight road—more like crawling through twisted land, fighting for every kilometer. Few go alone on a run like that. You must be pretty brave."

"I would like to think that."

Martin studied Reidar’s wolf, then the skeletal ranks at his heels. "But you weren’t truly alone, were you?"

"In a sense."

Martin nodded slowly, his gaze drifting toward the half-finished gate where workers scrambled over timber scaffolding. "If you’re bound for Creamont," he said, his voice dropping to a more serious tone, "you’ll need more than just determination. Proper supplies, reliable maps, maybe even local guides who know which paths aren’t crawling with feral packs. We can patch you up here—restock your provisions, mend that cloak of yours. Maybe even point you toward a safer route. But don’t expect any promises of a straight path waiting out there. The land itself fights passage now."

Reidar kept his shoulders loose. "There’s no need," he said. "I’m going to resume my journey as soon as I visit the vendor."

Martin’s expression tightened, his jaw working as if chewing on something bitter. For a heartbeat, the confident authority he wore like armor slipped, revealing a flicker of disappointment, perhaps, or a genuine, unspoken worry that he couldn’t quite smother.

His eyes narrowed slightly, the grey at his temples seeming more pronounced under the late afternoon light, and Reidar caught the faintest tremor in the man’s broad hands before they stilled. He pulled the composure back quickly, but not quickly enough. The worry lingered in the set of his mouth, in the way his gaze dropped to the ground between them before lifting again, sharp and assessing.